Op-ed: Registering properties and businesses in off shore tax havens may not be new but does that make it acceptable?

When one of the most divisive Prime Ministers of the UK, Mrs Thatcher, died in 2013 it was shocking to see parties and celebrations in parts of the UK; the old Wizard of Oz song Ding Dong the Witch is Dead looked set to rule the pop charts.

But although it maybe was shocking to some people it was neither unexpected nor surprising.

Some protesters chose to visit London so that they could turn their back on the funeral cortege of Margaret Thatcher as it wound its way through London.

The pomp, ceremony and heightened security of Thatcher's funeral cost the British public a pretty penny but why? Unlike so many families in the UK the Thatcher's were not struggling to meet the costs of a funeral.

Few other former Prime Ministers have been so costly or so divisive but of course it was Thatcher' funeral plan.

Whether she planned the funeral was contested in 2013; see the two following reports:

But either way following this week's tax haven revelations we are highlighting this old story from 2013.

Margaret Thatcher’s property valued at £12.5mil was registered in an off shore tax haven.

(Thatcher's children were hardly desperate for money - "Thatcher, who died in April, left £4.7 million to her family in her will, with a third each going to her children Mark and Carol, and the remaining third to be shared between her grandchildren when they reach 25.")

The property may have been in the UK but it was registered off shore saving Thatcher's kids a fortune in taxes and robbing the treasury of a great deal of revenue.

In 2013 we the people were sick to the back teeth of budget cuts and talk of austerity to pay the country's deficit down and now we realise why the UK was and is in such a pickle.

Rubbing salt into financial wounds Thatcher not only cost the country during her life and in death she actually robbed the treasury in death.

Sunday various UK Ministers including the PM are publishing their latest tax returns.

But do these returns show the real picture?

We already know from panama leaks earlier this week that Mossack Fonesca, the secretive company helping the rich hide their wealth from the taxman, is not alone.

And we already know Mossack Fonesca helped at least one customer by offering a substitute for tax avoidance and secrecy.

Most people will not care if the panama data leaks are all about attacking a few for hidden agendas including Cameron for his vow to shut down or restrict off shore tax havens; most ordinary people will just be sickened by a government hell bent on making the poor and vulnerable that bit worse off while our government laughs all the way to the bank.

Some will call Cameron's bad news week Karma.

Expert Richard Murphy, of Tax Research, said: “It has always been strange that Margaret Thatcher, that most British of prime ministers, enjoyed the benefits of a property registered in the British Virgin Islands.

"It is possible that Denis Thatcher set up the trust or other offshore arrangements in order to save tax.”Ex-Tory leader Thatcher died in April aged 87 following a stroke and had her ­ceremonial funeral funded by the taxpayer.

Papers linked to her will state “the gross value of the estate in the United Kingdom amounts to £4,768,795”. But it does not appear to include the Belgravia mansion, valued at £12.4million by Zoopla.​The house was bought in 1991 by Bakeland Property Limited, an anonymous offshore trust in Jersey, on a 64-year lease. It was sub-leased to a firm of the same name based in the British Virgin Islands.

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